The last two months have been a complete whirlwind. I am in the process of writing a detailed post about everything I've been up to lately but until then I thought I'd share a little piece I wrote recently. I was in the middle of teaching for PST2 (the second training for volunteers that arrived this past March) and my supervisor asked me to write something about my Peace Corps service. Summing up an experience that spans years, every emotion I possess, and a pretty wild series of events is not the easiest thing, but it was actually nice to sit down amid the chaos of training and say a little something about what Peace Corps means to me. I hope you enjoy it. (Some of the stories or imagery may be recycled from other posts I've written, sorry to be repetitive.)
My name is Emily and I am a Peace Corps volunteer living in almost exactly what you might picture the Peace Corps to be. My village is a tiny, beautiful cluster of mud and cement houses in the middle of the desert. Around the village, you can see for miles along the hard packed sand and shimmers of heat. We have no electricity, no running water, no cars, no paved roads, a small mosque, and one elementary school. We wear brightly colored clothes, pull water from a well, and carry babies on our backs. Men drink tea in the passing shade of buildings and women cook over open fires. At night, we sleep outside together under the stars.
This looks like a Peace Corps poster. I look like a Peace Corps volunteer- fairly dirty, smiling, tan from the African sun. But what does that Peace Corps picture mean, actually? When I sit in village, I do have the presence of mind to appreciate all of the wonderful things in my community. On days when I struggle with the language, on days when my projects look like they are going to fail, on days when I am hot and hungry and lonely, I still see the beauty of a child smiling on my lap or listening to my grandmother tell stories. There are hard parts of this job, and the challenges we face here are not to be taken lightly. You become resilient here or you don’t make it. More than anything else, though, the hardest part of Peace Corps is sitting in village, falling in love with it, and asking yourself, what am I doing here? Am I doing everything I can? Does anything I do make a difference? Am I capable of any of this? I have never cared more about anything and failed so much. The truth is that creating successful, sustainable projects is incredibly difficult and much of a volunteer’s work will not have the desired results. Even if it does work the way it is supposed to, many of those initially successful projects will not outlast the volunteer’s time of service. It is a special form of torture, I believe. To care so much, to try so hard, to fail so often. This is the essence of why being a Peace Corps volunteer is so difficult.
Sometimes though, you get it right. You find the right counterpart and the two of you go after something you are passionate about to the fullest extent of your capabilities. And with a small miracle, it works. And when something works, it really works. It is worth all the tears, the anxieties, the sleepless nights for this one project, this one moment.
“Enen njogi dole! Enen njogi dole!” This was the sound of success, this was the sound of change, of capacity building, of making a difference. This- “we have strength! we have strength!”- is what 25 girls chanted and danced to at the end of one of my Girls Skillz* sessions this past May. The memory of it makes me emotional and I hope it always will. It was not an easy road to get to this point. I live in the north of Senegal, a largely rural, very conservative Muslim area. Most young girls don’t make it past middle school or even elementary school and in their parents’ generation many women never attended school at all. Many of them know almost nothing about reproductive or sexual health. Early marriage is very prevalent, with brides as young as 12 or 13 married to over 30 year old men. When my counterpart, Ramata, and I started this project, no one came to our village meeting. Not a single person. We were going to talk about sensitive issues and people were wary of what that meant. The fact that girls were going to play soccer in our program at all was highly unusual, and then we wanted to talk about early marriage, HIV/AIDS, STIs, and women’s empowerment on top of it. Undeterred, we went house to house inviting people and talking to their parents, gaining their trust in the program.
At our first meeting, we had 10 girls show up over an hour late when we had invited 30. The girls were so shy that no one talked and they pulled their scarves over their faces. They smiled at my dance-based activities but only barely participated, giggling nervously at the idea of dancing and chanting in a formal classroom. They didn’t have any suggestions for a team name. I left that first day feeling like Sisyphus. All the work we had put into the curriculum, all the time spent training, and it just was not working. All I could hope was that maybe they secretly enjoyed it and just didn’t show it. Was it me? Had I not put in enough energy, enough preparation? I knew that what we were teaching them was so important and that the program could offer them so much. No one had ever asked these girls what they wanted to be when they grew up. No one had every asked them to consider what makes a good partner. No one had ever told them that they were beautiful inside and out. No one had ever told them that they were strong, that they were smart, that they deserved to be educated and make choices about their lives.
At our first meeting, we had 10 girls show up over an hour late when we had invited 30. The girls were so shy that no one talked and they pulled their scarves over their faces. They smiled at my dance-based activities but only barely participated, giggling nervously at the idea of dancing and chanting in a formal classroom. They didn’t have any suggestions for a team name. I left that first day feeling like Sisyphus. All the work we had put into the curriculum, all the time spent training, and it just was not working. All I could hope was that maybe they secretly enjoyed it and just didn’t show it. Was it me? Had I not put in enough energy, enough preparation? I knew that what we were teaching them was so important and that the program could offer them so much. No one had ever asked these girls what they wanted to be when they grew up. No one had every asked them to consider what makes a good partner. No one had ever told them that they were beautiful inside and out. No one had ever told them that they were strong, that they were smart, that they deserved to be educated and make choices about their lives.
Ramata and I started preparing for the next session, feeling that even if we only taught one girl it would make a difference and be worth the work. Several days before the next session, girls or their mothers started coming up to me in village. They wanted to be included, they said. They wanted to be part of this special group I had where people were having so much fun and talking about such interesting things. I was shocked but delighted. An hour before our next session was supposed to start, I had five girls come to my house because they wanted to start early. When I got to the classroom, 30 smiling girls were awaiting me and Ramata. They were still shy and still nervous to talk, but they danced wholeheartedly with me and laughed big, happy, beautiful laughs. As Ramata went through the session I could see comprehension dawning in their eyes. They were taking time to think about themselves, about their lives, about respecting their minds and their bodies. They were answering the questions that no one had ever asked them before. By the end of the session, the girls were all snapping their fingers to add their comments and we made up songs about the strength of women. “Enen njogi dole! Enen njogi dole!” It was everything I could have imagined. My face hurt from smiling so much. We had created a space where they could be creative, lively, 13 year old girls. They weren’t brides, they weren’t caretakers, they weren’t burdened by cooking, pulling water, sweeping, washing, or any of the other chores they are constantly tasked with. Over six weeks, what we were doing continued to astound me. The girls were learning about themselves, growing, exploring the possibilities in front of them. I am sure that they won’t forget the things we did and I know for a fact I never will.
Being a volunteer is not easy. Every single day here is a challenge for me both mentally and physically. But I wouldn’t trade it for the world. No matter what I am giving up to be here, it is nothing compared to what I am doing and what I am getting. When I sit in village, I question myself and my role as a volunteer, but I know that this is the most worthwhile thing I have ever done and may ever do. I’m a lucky volunteer living in a tiny, beautiful cluster of mud and cement houses in the middle of the desert.
*a Grassroot Soccer program
*a Grassroot Soccer program
